Decades on from royal commission into deaths in custody, Indigenous community still waits for change

When Lloyd Boney’s life was cut short in a police cell in 1987, it wasn’t just his family who were gripped by grief. It triggered a collective cry for change and led to a national reckoning.

WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this article contains an image of a person who has died.

“The whole community was sad … it affected us big time, just crying in the street,” Glen Boney said of his 28-year-old brother’s death.

By the time Lloyd Boney died in lock-up in the tiny town of Brewarrina in north-west New South Wales, the Indigenous community had started counting their dead.